Irresponsible attitude of Engand's leading batsman has undermined the tour and
the coach cannot allow it to go on

The reason England are in such a mess in this Ashes Test series is that the batsmen cannot make runs and the bowlers cannot take wickets.

We came on tour with plenty of players who have excellent figures in Test match cricket. Jonathan Trott has gone home but in this series Alastair Cook averages 25, Kevin Pietersen 27, Ian Bell 37 and Matt Prior 17.5. That is the engine room of the batting. Lots of experience and seniority – but it has failed.

We do not have poor batsmen, but we have guys who are playing irresponsible shots and it has become so infectious that it is effecting the newcomers, Joe Root and Michael Carberry.

I counted that in six innings 50 per cent of the dismissals have been caused by bad shot selection, not good balls.

It is a mindset. We are not staying in. We are getting ourselves out. We have not worked out how to play Nathan Lyon’s off-spinners when he bowls around the wicket to the right-handers. We find scoring against him still a huge problem.

We have just played six Test matches against him and the players have had time to talk about him and watch footage of him, but he is still bowling as if he is tossing up hand grenades. We are crease bound. Hardly anybody goes down the pitch using their feet to him, as Michael Clarke does to Graeme Swann.

Our only answer seems to be biffing him over the top, otherwise we block him. We allow him to tie us down and create pressure instead of nudging him around for ones and twos. Playing stupid shots, gifting our wickets away, being irresponsible is purely a mental thing. It has nothing to do with ability. It comes back to what my Uncle Algy said: “You can’t make runs in the pavilion, so stay in.”

How do you tell inexperienced players such as Carberry and Root that you have to sell your wicket dearly and work through difficult periods in a match, but then Pietersen plays like he does? He has given his wicket away four times out of six. Each time they set a trap for him and he falls for it. He is a mug and the Aussies are laughing at him. They think he is a sucker.

Senior players should always give a lead to the juniors, but with Pietersen it is all about self. He is going to do whatever he wants, play the way he feels irrespective of the state of the match or what is best for England.

I do not agree that you have to let him play the way he wants. When the best player in the team makes stupid mistakes just think what that does to the morale of the rest of the players. KP is in his own world.

It is almost a personal challenge. He is going to show everyone that if you put a fielder in a position, he can hit it over him or past him because he thinks he is better than the plan they have set for him.

He is England’s best player by far and it has a huge impact when he gets out. But getting out is not a crime. It is the way you get out.

It is also a failure of management as much as KP’s fault. Andy Flower has allowed him to play any way he wants because he can win matches.

Every mother knows that no matter how much she loves her child she has to set boundaries. The child has to know if you cross the boundary some privileges will be taken away until you grasp right and wrong.

Andy should have told him long ago it is not on. But obviously he has let him do what he wants, so he keeps making the same silly mistakes. I actually think KP is too long in the tooth to change now. They say old dogs cannot or will change. If I was Andy Flower I would be saying either he goes or I go.

Perhaps both should go after this series and we start afresh building a new team under a new boss ready for the 2015 Ashes. Pietersen should just play in one-dayers leading up to and including the World Cup, where he can express himself with his risky and outrageous shots.

For sometime now we have been winning Test matches through three wicket-taking bowlers. We have had the swing and seam bowling of Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad and the spin of Swann. Out here the ball does not swing so Jimmy has been negated. He is straight up and down, trying his heart out, but he cannot get wickets. Swann cannot spin it and has been taken out of the equation. So we are left with Broad.

They are so keen for Tim Bresnan to play because he keeps it tight. He is a big, strong lad who bowls disciplined lines. But in my mind to win Test matches you need batsmen to make runs and bowlers to take wickets.

The guy who should be playing is Steven Finn. In 23 Tests he has taken 90 wickets at 29 runs each but a strike rate of a wicket every 48 balls. The backroom staff have concentrated so much on stopping him catching the stumps with his trailing leg at delivery that now he cannot bowl the ball down the pitch.

Every time he catches the stump it is one no-ball run to the opposition. Who the hell cares about one run if he can get people out? I would have been telling him “just get the ball down the other end quick from 6ft 7in and forget the no balls”. But they prefer Bresnan or Chris Tremlett to block up an end.

They want a Steady Eddie? Who would I prefer to face? Steady Eddie or someone who might get me out? It’s a pretty easy one to answer.

They need to get Finn back to where he was and leave him alone. They have messed him up and it has cost us a wicket-taking bowler.

In Melbourne they should pick Monty Panesar in place of Swann and Jonny Bairstow for Prior just to freshen up the team. It does not mean Prior and Swann cannot come back. They are not finished, but just to keep going in with the same team and being horribly beaten does not do us any good.

It does not look good to the public and we need to start planning for 2015. It is only 18 months away. Time is your enemy in sport. It runs out quicker than you think.